Thoughts on Viernes…02152013

A USA Today article on how Immigration and Customs Enforcement has pushed for increases in deportations caused a lot of ruckus today. What really caught the eye of folks, and as reported by Grassroots.org, was that the former Assistant Director of ICE who pushed for these increased deportations is now the EVP of GEO Group, a private prison corporation which gets a lot of government contracts to warehouse immigrants while they await deportation. GEO Group also does a lot of business in Texas, taking over local county jails and state prisons and doing a bad job of managing them, according to lawsuits filed against them.

Obviously, there are more than just contracts being transacted, since much of this not only takes government insiders-turned-private executives to get this done, it also take political money. And GEO Group’s PAC gives a nice sum of cash at every election cycle. DosCentavos did a little searching of the last couple of years on the Texas Ethics Commission and Federal Election Commission databases and after a little cutting and pasting found just who is getting the political money. For Federal candidates, click here. For Texas Lege candidates, click here. Yes, the list includes many beloved Dems who I hope return those checks–quickly.